Artificial Intelligence, America, and the New Nobility

Author’s Note: This article was adapted from my keynote address given at a conference on the future of technology at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2024.

Like every concerned person around the globe, I have given thought to Artificial Intelligence (AI). What does it portend for humanity that we can create an intelligence that is, in a very real sense, and in its way, smarter than we are? What happens when the darker motives of greed and service to one’s self-image, meaning ego and vanity, are set loose? Historically, unregulated business interests have proven to be lacking in both ethical and moral behavior, becoming inevitably predatory. The owners of major corporations and their CEOs are powerful, politically astute, relentless, and often ruthless in pursuit of the maximization of profit. Who are these exploitive international companies? Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Google, META, and many more might qualify. These are either monopolies or near monopolies. Throughout modern history, monopolies have always led inexorably to negative consequences for the majority.

The New Nobility, also known as the One Percent, constitutes the growing ranks of right-wing billionaires and millionaires chasing their own interests to the detriment of everyone else. This group of people tends to care solely for itself. The remaining mass of American citizens are the new serfs as defined by economist Yanis Varoufakis in his book “Technofascism: What Killed Capitalism.” AI is well on the road to becoming the means whereby the New Nobility will both maintain and expand corporate influence.

It is simple enough. Money is what matters. Money translates into political influence. The political right in America slavishly supports business interests. The New Nobility rewards politicians with monetary donations for election campaigns and even provides jobs when they leave government. It is a good deal. Election campaigns have now become beauty contests governed by algorithms and dark money. Beauty — of course — remains in the eye of the beholder. Beauty for the well-heeled are those enablers who kow-tow to their need to exercise influence in their own interests. Nothing could be less democratic in the 21st or any other century. George Orwell was prescient. To paraphrase him, “some people are obviously more equal than others,” meaning that today the wealthy have corrupted democracy. AI is perceived as a means of gaining even more ground and growing that influence. But that’s not all.

As earlier mentioned, in business, the primary obsession is the maximization of profit. The benefactors are the owners of those businesses and their shareholders in publicly traded companies. Some people subscribe to conspiracy theories in the hope of coming to better understand the ever more confusing world of big money. But conspiracy theories in this case are not needed. Adam Smith in his still widely read “Wealth of Nations” proposed that the invisible hand of self-interest is all that is required to explain the success of Capitalism. Smith was right. The New Nobility simply acts in its own self-interest in the same way the Old Nobility did, when we called them princes, dukes, and earls. In fact, you may note ironically a predilection of the New Nobility to purchase the homes of the former Old Nobility. The fact is that politics today is much more about the desires of the monied class than the ideological positions described as Liberal or Conservative Left or Right. Smith also warned that if the government did not intervene through regulation, corruption would follow. Money can easily corrupt both sides of the aisle, but now most such funds are directed primarily toward right-wing politicians. In fact, it is becoming clear that the New Nobility largely own the Republican Party.

In America, business interests are king. Business leaders are lionized. The smartest and most ruthless claw their way to the top of the corporate pyramid where they are lavished with million-dollar salaries and bonuses — making the New Nobility even richer. Of course, all the while, the middle class is being squeezed and the poor, quite literally, are getting poorer. Regrettably, the law no longer protects citizens. One example is the 2010 US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. That decision equates money with free speech, aiding and abetting the ongoing process in America of disenfranchising the many in favor of the few well-heeled. It is an absurdity now baked into the body politic by ostensibly legal means. It is also outrageously anti-democratic. The more recent decision of the Supreme Court is the striking down of the Chevron Doctrine that serves to favor business interests over public safety.

Also, consider newsrooms in America. News was once a sacred national trust. The newsrooms of the major media companies in the last century regularly lost money. More recently, Fox News found a way to monetize the news by telling its viewers exactly what they wanted to hear by creating “niche reporting” that led inexorably to the global media giant paying out nearly eight hundred million dollars in fines for the political lies told by its on-air personalities. In military terms, the control of information is the ultimate high ground.

What is the only entity that can counter the New Nobility? It can only be honest government. Tragically, what happens when elected politicians are influenced by dark money, so much so that they no longer represent the common good? Everything becomes a commodity. This is predatory Capitalism and self-interest gone mad, as we may have seen in any number of dystopian future science fiction movies. In these movies, AI is usually being tapped by those in power to hold on to their positions of wealth, authority, and privilege.

By training, I am both a soldier and strategist. The First Principle of War is OBJECTIVE. Why is objective first? Because, in fact, objective is the first principle of all human endeavors. Foremost — what do you hope to accomplish? The objective defines both the ways and means utilized to achieve any given goal. What about ethics? What about morality? For those climbing the corporate ladder, morality and ethics generally take the hindmost. It is instead, a dog-eat-dog world, where only the strong survive.

The brilliant German philosopher, George Hegel reminds us that, “What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.” He also states, “…the relationship between self and otherness is the fundamental defining characteristic of human awareness and activity.” Where does AI fit in Hegel’s philosophy? If AI is merely an extension of ourselves, then, shouldn’t it value morality and ethical behavior? Where is human awareness? Are we doomed because we have failed to learn from history? It might seem so given our current trajectory.

What if AI continues to remain under the control of the self-interested and right-wing monied class, which has already proven themselves largely detached from what you and I might consider to be the daily grind of human existence? It has been suggested that the acquisition of many great fortunes was occasioned by equally great crimes, hence the term Robber Barons came into existence in the 19th Century to describe the likes of JP Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Their spawn can be found leading major corporations, hedge funds, and private equity firms. It should be clear that unregulated predatory monopolies present a danger to society. The only thing standing between the further corporate exploitation of our citizenry through the misuse of AI remains honest government. AI must be harnessed for the collective good and not be used in the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few. We continue to ignore this threat at our peril.